


The Ghosts of His Childhood

by DestielsDestiny



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: BAMF Magnus Bane, Cats, Episode related 2x16, Gen, Graphic Description, Has a personality of its own?, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Insecure Alec Lightwood, Jace Wayland Deserves Nice Things, Jace Wayland Feels, Jace Wayland Needs A Hug, Jace Wayland is a Herondale, M/M, Magic, Magnus Bane & Jace Wayland Friendship, Magnus' magic, Malace, Multi, OT3, POV Alec, POV Magnus Bane, Past Child Abuse, Pillow Fights, Polyamory, Pre-Malace, Protective Magnus Bane, References to Canon, Sad Alec, Sad Magnus, Somewhat, Valentine didn't write nice things, Valentine's Journals of Sadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 14:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11557320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: Magnus reads Valentine’s journals, for science. There are goose feathers. And rather a lot of fire. Plus a herd of cats. Oh, and feels.





	The Ghosts of His Childhood

**Author's Note:**

> AN: This is inspired by a comment from the brilliant Takara Phoenix, so the reason Magnus is reading the journals is not something I can take credit for. My thanks to her for helping me get over a writing roadblock with this story.  
> Something that needs to be addressed; I realize this story makes no reference to the fact the journals refer to two people, or the fact the real Jonathan Christopher was also an experiment, and suffered arguably even more than Jace did. This was deliberate, as this story would have been several times longer if I tried to include Seb in a way that would remotely do him and his suffering and story justice. So, just keep in mind that while Valentine had two victims referenced in those journals, this story is focused on just Jace’s side of that equation.  
> Believe it or not, my original idea for this was a lot more depressing. No fear though, that may still materialize at a later date.  
> This is pretty rough, will be edited better soon.

“Magnus?” The loft was in darkness when Alec returned, bone tired from arguing repeatedly with different Institute departments over the proper positioning of the screens in the Ops Center. Alec sometimes felt he had not properly recalled the potential absurdities of this job before accepting it for a second time. That, or all the crazies had been mysteriously absent his first go round. Raj at least was new, so it was possible Alec supposed. 

Only the thought of Magnus’ open, happy, almost painfully startled expression when Alec came home on a night when they hadn’t arranged anything, when they had nothing planned except being together, breathing the same air, only that drove Alec’s tired feet to bypass the corridor to his room, and trudge the seemingly endless blocks to his boyfriend’s place. 

“Thank the Angle for elevators,” Alec found himself muttering quietly once more, as he flicked on a nearby lamp on route to Magnus’-their-bedroom. “Magnus, where are you?” 

Only the quiet meows of Magnus’ herd of distinctly non-mangy cats caused Alec to pause, to turn towards the balcony. The doors were firmly shut, the space beyond in complete darkness, a darkness unnatural in a New York night-sky. Alec bent down absently to stroke assorted cats on route to the far side of the terrace, hoping rather wishfully that Mrs. Lenin hadn’t indulged her carrying-dead-rat-corpses-about fetish this evening, and that that really was just kinda course cat fur his hand had just bumped against. 

Cringing a little, fumbling his stele to activate his nightvision rune as his toes made contact with yet another potentially priceless piece of antique deck furniture, Alec pitches his voice to carry softly, “You won’t believe what Jace did today-“ 

A sharp stab of indrawn air alerted Alec to Magnus’ presence, cutting him off and causing him to turn sharply in the same instant. His boyfriend was sitting hunched over on the ground, his back wedged against the underside of the parapet, not far from where the Fear Demon had almost caused Alec to fall to his death a scant few months before. 

Alec swallowed harshly. Magnus hated this part of the roof. 

“Magnus?” Alec knelt hesitantly before the warlock’s bent knees, his hands hovering carefully a few inches from Magnus, not quite touching. 

“Did I ever tell you I met Stephen once?” Magnus’ voice was as harsh as cut glass. 

Alec swallowed hard, his knees grinding into the stone of the roof. Good, at least Jace wasn’t home then. He wasn’t sure why the ground-and really any surface in general-got oddly soft when Jace was around these days, but Magnus didn’t even seem to be aware of it, so Alec held his peace on the subject. 

“Are we talking about Stephen Herondale?” He doesn’t say Jace’s father. Hate it though they all might-including the father in question-, Valentine would always have the largest claim to that title for his parabatai. 

“Yes. Well, both him and Celine actually. They attended a Herondale reunion, back in the days when the Circle was still a legitimate political idea, and not a branded terrorist group. Tessa was hosting it.” Back when there were enough Herondales left for such an event to even be possible went without saying. Magnus continued to stare into the middle distance, caught up in the memory, his eyes glowing yellow-green in the darkness. Alec swallowed again, just as hard. 

“Valentine was with them.” The warlock’s voice cracks for a moment, and the shadows abruptly shift just enough for Alec to make out the singed edges of a familiar journal, crushed between Magnus’ drawn up knees and his heaving chest. “I didn’t remember that Alexander. I was in the same room with that monster, for hours, and I can’t remember if I even noticed.” 

Alec’s hands have long since dropped to his sides, and they slowly begin to form into fists of their own accord.

“Magnus, that was decade ago, no one knew-“ Magnus cuts him off, uncurling enough to hold up the journal as macabre proof of his next revelation. “Twenty-one years ago, exactly.” He huffs an incredulous laugh, the glint of something that Alec suspects are tears in his eyes. 

Alec’s stomach does a nosedive of its own, because that’s rather exact, because that can only mean-

“Celine was pregnant already.” Magnus says it like he’s reporting the weather. _Chance of showers, predictions of maniacal child abductions towards the evening._

“Valentine writes about it.” The pause is not nearly long enough. “It’s the first entry.”

The last word is spat, actual spittle hitting Alec’s frozen face. Magnus’ eyes have narrowed until the slits are nearly vertical, the warlock still uncharacteristically still.

Alec stares blankly at the beautiful cursive filling the pages flailed before his eyes. 

Magnus throws the last of the fuel onto the fire. “He calls him it.” Colours run up and down Magnus’ arms, his voice hollow as he goes on, as he clarifies. As if it even needed to be made yet more horrifyingly clear. "The baby. Jace. His fa- _Valentine_ called him _it._ " Alec abruptly finds himself with an armful of warlock, the journal falling to the hard rooftop with a muffled thud. 

“He couldn’t even be bothered to give that _child_ a name.” _Jace. To give Jace a name._ Alec closed his eyes on the thought, blinking them open abruptly as Magnus shuddered against him. And just like that, the entire roof was set ablaze, fire licking harmlessly across every surface, twining around their legs, racing from Alec’s skin to Magnus’ and back. 

The journal remained stubbornly intact at their feet. Magnus pulled away from Alec slightly to glare at it, his eyes devastating in their gallows humour as he met his boyfriend’s shattered gaze. 

“Well darling, I supposed that makes Valentine all, Us zero.”

Alec watches the flames lick harmlessly at the pristine parchment. He wishes desperately that this was all truly just come giant game, one they could turn off, unplug, and burn to dust.

His eyes match Magnus’, in gaze as well as emotion. It is a heart stopping sight. You wouldn't think it to know him, but Alec has always been rather good at games. 

“Well then, the bastard had better watch himself, hadn’t he.”

Magnus’ teeth flash in the blazing light. “I couldn’t agree more darling.”

At their feet, the journal begins to smoke. 

00

There were days when Magnus hated being the High Warlock of Brooklyn. 

There were days when he loved it. When demons and shadowhunters alike flinched at the mere mention of his name. When Ragnor teased him for the better part of a century at the grandiosity of the title. 

When Alec flicked a proud smile at some casual display of magical prowess. When Maryse swallowed her pride and asked for his help, bringing soft smiles to her children’s faces. 

When Jace looked at Magnus as if the Warlock could fix anything and everything with the merest flick of his wrist. 

But there were days when he hated it. When an endless stream of hapless clients knocked on his door, expecting solutions to problems that inevitably left him parts exhausted, incredulous, and so very often, just sad.

When he failed to save someone, no matter how hard his magic fought. No matter how hard he fought. 

When children were involved. Especially when children were involved. 

When his title got his body hijacked by the Shadowhunter version of a Hitler Wannabe crossed with a Dr. Mengele copycat. 

When he looked at his boyfriend’s parabatai, and realized time travel was still not a thing even he could accomplish. 

Or, he reflected sourly, flipping another depressingly unyellowed page of horror stories rendered into scientific verse, when people asked him to read stuff like this. 

A rustle of paper drew his attention from a particularly vivid description of the infamous hawk incident, momentarily distracting his magic from its quest to redress the travesty of…well, everything, recorded in these pages. Valentine had not just destroyed his victims' lives, he had taken out the pieces and pulverized them, in the hopes of shaping something newly twisted and warped in his own weird image.

_Its neck snapped with the same sound as Jace’s fingers always do, when he makes a mistake in his fingering…_

Or maybe the bastard had just been a sick fu- Another rustle, long elegant fingers sifting through parchment. Magnus feels abruptly rather ill. 

_He never cries, never screams anymore. He at least understands the importance of efficiency now, and after far fewer rune applications than I had first anticipated…_

Magnus paused, his hands going still in mid-air, his gaze suddenly fixed on Jace. Jace, whose brow furrowed in confusion even as his mismatched eyes glanced around, up and down and to the side, as if looking for what he had done wrong, what he had broken or damaged without meaning to. 

That…did not help what Magnus was currently feeling. Not even remotely. 

Magnus stared some more, his eyes burning brighter and brighter, his glamour slipping further and further as he took in the sight before him. The sight of Valentine Morgenstern’s journals, his diaries of experimentation, of _torture_ , painstakingly arranged in careful, efficient order. Every volume itemized, every page indexed. Everything meticulously gone over, on the off chance it would help them, the Institute, or the Clave, or Magnus himself. Everything organize with perfect efficiency, _by the boy whose life those journals reduced to a greedy child’s science experiment, in millions of words of detail._

Magnus felt the rush of fire before it reached his fingertips, felt his control begin to slip as it had not done in decades, in centuries, not since-

Only for it to pause. Not stop, nothing could do that now, not even if Alexander was standing between him and those…things. But it slowed down, paused, for just a moment yes, but moment enough. 

“Jonathan,” Magnus’ voice sounded like he was dragging it forcibly from his own throat, broken and ragged and terrible. Predictably, the target of that growl looked worried for _Magnus_ , rather than himself. 

Magnus doesn’t have the luxury or the control to make this gentle, so he barrels straight into it, already wrapping his magic around Jace’s shoulders before the last syllable of the ground out, “Come here,” has left his mouth. Jace comes willingly enough, Magnus silently muttering a "Thank the Angel" towards the mental space he’s beginning to label his inner Alexander that the boy is as eager as a puppy to please the warlock he lives with. Most of the time, that breaks Magnus a little more every time he acknowledges it’s a thing. In this moment, he is just relieved. 

Relieved that his magic is more a warm blanket draped around an already up and moving Jace, rather than a hot, prickling force moving the boy closer to Magnus, away from those damn journals. 

Still, Magnus waits until his boyfriend’s parabatai is reassuringly wedged between his shoulder blades and the wall before finally giving into the heat that has continued to build to a painful intensity throughout his body. Magnus finds the strength to wait until Jace is well clear, his confused breath hot on the back of his neck, before his hands rush forward, fingers twirling in intricate blue streaked arcs through the air as Jace pushes slightly against Magnus in a startled, uncertain half-step forward. “Magnus, what are you-?” 

Magnus forces his shoulders back in an uncomfortable arc, just to feel the reassuring thump of Jace’s heartbeat, shuts his ears to the boy’s incredulous, hesitant but not fearful, never fearful queries, and lets his hands snap together with a thunderous clap that shakes the very walls. 

And with that downward thrust, he throws his magic at the journals. And promptly sets them alight. 

Jace edges out from behind Magnus as the red and blue flames jump higher across the reams of paper and leather, the table surface underneath beginning to show through already, unscarred and whole.  
Golden hair glows strangely in the dancing shadows cast by the display, making Jace look infinitely younger. Incredulous, mismatched eyes find Magnus’ unglamoured ones and hold, streaks of red light playing across the confused features. 

“Why did you do that?” The question is so genuine, so curious and so clueless that Magnus feels his magic rush up the surface of his skin once again, eager and untameable. 

For an instant, Magnus is a little boy, held in a ring of fire, heat licking at his hair, singing at his ears, his toes, his fingers. He is screaming, crying on the inside, unnaturally silent on the outside. His cries of “I’m sorry daddy, I’ll never touch them again, I swear!” are never to be spoken, lest something worse come along. For a moment, he can taste blood in his mouth, his tongue caught painfully between his teeth with the effort to stay silent. 

Magnus feels himself gasp at the same moment Jace does, reopening his eyes on the face of that boy, grown up and staring into yet another fire. And yet still, there is no fear in those eyes. 

“Wonderful, now I have two of you to deal with.” It is arid dry, completely out of place, Magnus’ tongue loosened along with the rest of his waxing control. Jace stares at him, a different kind of incredulous now, more disbelieving than confused. 

“Did you just get mad enough at Valentine’s handwriting to burn it to ash, and then flirt with me, in the space of the same breath?” The flames choose that moment to shoot towards the ceiling. Jace doesn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow in their direction. 

Magnus feels his magic reach out eagerly towards Jace, something warm and golden hanging in the air between them. It gives him enough breath, enough bravado, to plow on into the breach, as if nothing significant had just occurred at all. 

“Well, that rather depends on whether it’s working or not, doesn’t it my dear.” His hands jump upwards in a twirl that ends with two smoking cocktails dangling from his fingertips, a matching grin on his face. 

Jace takes the drink by rote, his eyes only now fixed on the smouldering remains on the table, where the ash is currently in the process of self-immolating. 

Eyes snap back to the cocktail. A cocky grin slides in place, with just a hint of genuineness around the edges. “A for effort there man, but I’m allergic to orange rind.” 

Inexplicably, Magnus feels his grin widen, even as he mentally resigns himself to the fact he now definitely has two annoying shadowhunters in his possession. 

Angel help them all. 

00

There are days when Alec hates being the Head of the New York Institute. 

There are days when he loves it. When Jace handed it to him with a blinding grin so full of love and pride Alec practically felt his heart swell three sizes bigger, even as he mentally cursed Simon’s insistence on Team Movie Nights. 

Days when he sees that same pride reflected in Magnus’ eyes, quiet and fierce and beautiful. 

Even days when his parents begin to join that club, Maryse’s drawn but honestly happy face, Robert’s quiet looks, more frown than anything but still undeniably something. 

Days when he gets to do the job he was raised and groomed and trained to do. The job he is just beginning to realize he is really rather good at. Days when things actually go just a little bit right. Days where it feels like they just might all win, somehow, together. 

But then there are days, so very many days, when he hates it. Days when nothing seems to go right, when impossible decisions and no answers bleed together into uncertain outcomes and harsher realities. Days when Alec has to pick others over those he loves. Days where he has to feel like he is ripping his own heart out and trampling on it. 

Then there are days like today. Days that make him wish Magnus hadn’t run as fast, hadn’t been so very good at magic, hadn’t been so very perceptive. Hadn’t loved him that much. Had just let him fall, before he could hurt anyone else. 

Days like today, when he has to shove down every shred of decency, of love, of pain. Every burn and scream echoing across his skin, echoing across his stomach like he’s being repeatedly stabbed. Days when Magnus looks at him with burning cat eyes, and Alec feels like he will catch fire if he holds that expression a single moment longer. 

Alec hates himself for feeling that way. Almost as much as he hates himself for what he is about to say, for what he has been saying for the past endless, interminable minutes. 

“Magnus, we needed those notes!” _You know that_ echoed between them, silent and yet shouted.

“No, we didn’t Alexander!” It isn’t shouted, not verbally. Magnus’ hands flash through the air like visual wildfire though, every spark of his magic jumping across his fingers louder than any words ever could be. 

Alec stares, transfixed. Even now, even arguing like this, he can’t help but think, _Angel is he beautiful._

Alec shakes his head, and attempts to pull his Head of the Institute hat back on. 

“Yes, Magnus, we did. Do.” 

Magnus storms even closer to Alec, pausing mere inches from his boyfriend’s face. It never even occurs to Alec to flinch. He knows it will never have to. 

Because right then, Magnus’ expression slackens abruptly, going soft and dangerous to match his voice. “No, we don’t Alec. We don’t need them.” He looks like the words physically pain him. 

Alec’s confusion must reflect in his eyes, because Magnus shifts back a touch, swinging around with a fluid grace, his shoulders slumping, the fire vanishing as rapidly as it had come. Alec finds himself suddenly missing it. “We don’t need those… _journals_ Alec. Oh, yes, there is no denying the vile things would be useful,” Magnus pauses here, new venom dripping into his words, “ _Efficient_ even, no doubt as they were intended to be.” 

Alec had only read a single entry in a single journal, all he had managed to glimpse when the books were handed over to Magnus, in the instant before Jace had deliberately pretended to stumble into his parabatai, in a heartbreakingly pathetic attempt to prevent Alec from seeing the damning words describing in intimate, almost _loving_ detail the nightmare of Jace’s early life. A nightmare his parabatai had never so much as hinted at, at least not out loud. 

Alec still feels he should have known somehow, for all that Magnus keeps reminding him that cycles of blame are as useless and destructive as cycles of abuse or cycles of violence. The person who let his warlock boyfriend loose in the mental health section of the local bookstore had a lot to answer for, in Alec’s opinion. Although he would first have to give them a rather large…vegetable basket? He made a mental note to check that last with Simon in the unlikely event such a thing ever came up. 

Alec may have only seen a single entry, but it had been enough for him to know that efficient was the very last adjective he would use to describe those…entries. Certainly not scientific, for all Valentine had had the audacity to title the damn things, _The Science of Angel and Demon Blood, Live Trials._

Magnus had settled from flaring to pacing, his bare feet wearing a grove into the plush Persian rugs that seemed to spontaneously appear in the loft every time Jace showed up these days. And Angel, Alec was glad Jace was out on the balcony feeding Magnus' herd of cats, safely cushioned behind the soundproofing spell Magnus had thrown at the doors several minutes earlier. Just as he was momentarily glad of Jace’s new found hesitancy on entering any room without knocking, a habit brought on by a poorly timed and thoughtless shout from Magnus ironically, and one that they were getting increasingly creative-and suggestive-in trying to break. 

Sex on kitchen tables was decidedly uncomfortable, Alec found. Even with the aid of magic. And decidedly useless, as all Jace had done was stand there and watch them, of all things. Which…wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Alec was both far too busy and far too gun-shy to let that thought play out any time soon. 

Alec abruptly found himself under the scrutiny of a patented concerned-boyfriend frown, such a change from the last few minutes that it took him a moment to realize he had unconsciously slipped into a parade rest while waiting for Magnus to throw out the next salvo. 

Consciously relaxing his muscles was easier than it used to be, quicker and more natural feeling, but it still took long enough for Magnus to cross the room, wrap a gentle arm around Alec’s shoulders, and visibly wilt into his boyfriend’s chest. 

“Forgive me Alexander. I have no excuse for this display, not one that would ever be sufficient. I forgot myself entirely, not something I’m proud of, especially as it seems to be happening rather a lot lately.” Alec mentally tacked on _Thanks to Valentine_ before drawing his boyfriend into a gentle kiss, his lips lingering on Magnus’ unadorned ones. The eyes that gazed up at him after they broke apart were disturbingly free of makeup, and disturbingly not free of glamour. Magnus looked oddly human, and terribly young, like that. 

Alec didn’t even have to think about his next words, “There’s nothing to forgive Magnus. You know that. Never apologize remember.” For feeling, for your magic, for being you. 

Magnus rested his forehead against Alec’s, his thankfully lacquered nails brushing against the base of Alec’s neck in a gentle caress. “It is just that I realized something a while ago darling, something I can’t seem to get out of my head. And it makes me so very angry. Angrier than I’ve been in centuries.” Magnus’ voice sounds startled at that, as if he had not thought such a thing was possible. No, perhaps more as if he had hoped such a thing was no longer possible. 

“I realized that as useful as Valentine’s journals might be, we don’t precisely _need_ them.” Magnus swallowed hard, his breath hitting Alec’s face in harsh, hot jets. “We don’t need them, because Jace already lived every word of them.” 

And just like that, Alec feels his heart break all over again. Something he had hoped was no longer possible. Apparently Valentine had just proved them both wrong. Wonderful. 

00

There were days when Jace hated having pure Angel blood. 

There were days when he loved it. When it let him jump higher, run faster, do better. When it let him survive his father, over and over again. When it made him useful. 

When it saved Clary’s life. When it saved Alec, Izzy, even Simon. 

When it helped him strive to become something more than the weapon Valentine grew him to be. 

When it proved him to be Valentine’s greatest failure, because it made him too weak. Because it made him too kind. When Magnus snaps cat eyes at Jace, insisting that blood doesn’t dictate a person’s innate character. And when Jace is able to flash gold orbs back and jibe, “Ditto,” and mean it. 

But there were also days when he hated it, like right about now, Imogen Herondale standing before him, a team of researchers several people deep behind her, an eager expression on her face. 

Jace is slowly beginning to realize that expression has more to do with the memory of her dead son than it does with the reality of her very much alive grandson. He’s also slowly starting to realize that really should bother him a lot more than it currently does. _Baby steps Jonathan,_ a voice whispers. And wonderful, an inner Magnus, just what Jace needed. 

“Jace, you must give us that man’s journals. They could be vitally important to the Clave’s interests.” To her credit, his grandmother softened her tone somewhat on the next part. “They might also offer vital insight into understanding your special abilities.” A wave of her hand edges the herd of researchers closer. Jace takes an involuntary step backwards. His grandmother’s expression doesn’t change. 

Jace feels something snap deep within him. He is still desperate to know about his parents, still wants to know his grandmother, but he doesn’t need a less sympathetic version of Maryse Lightwood in his life right now. Let alone a female version of Valentine. 

“Why did my parents join the Circle?” Jace watches Imogen’s face whiten, and for a moment feels the tinniest bit too cruel. So he doesn’t add, “Did you start to hate Valentine before or after he got your only son killed?” The Clave can keep their hypocrisy for another night. Jace has places to be.  
There are days Jace hates his pure Angel blood, because of what it represents, because of the attention it attracts-cue the herd of overly eager beavers/researchers currently regarding Jace’s veins like a choice cut of meat. 

But there are also days where he loves it. Days like today, when he can wink at his grandmother, unfeigned cheekiness sliding past the warring voices of his inner Alec and inner Magnus. “Don’t wait up for me grandma.” Days like today, when he slaps his hand against the rune Clary helped him draw across his left shoulder, over his heart, his eyes flashing gold even as he steps backward into a swirl of purple and blue smoke, leaving nothing behind but shards of fallen glass. 

Days when he materializes in the front room of the loft, startling Magnus and Alec into honest to goodness rolling off the couch where they appeared to be trying to eat each other’s faces off fully clothed, President Drumpf giving a disgruntled meow before wrapping herself around Jace’s legs, Jace glancing sideways at the floor’s new occupants with a mischievous grin on his face. 

“Hey guys, hope I’m not too late for dinner.” 

Jace gathers up his cat, kicks off his boots and keeps going until his bare toes sink deliciously into the plush Persian rug beneath his feet, then saunters happily towards the kitchen. Lasagna smells infinitely more appetizing than spaghetti ever did. 

He pauses in the doorway, his head twisting round to regard the still sprawled forms of his gratifyingly startled family. “Though for the record, both of you are like, epically hot.” 

Jace ducks into the kitchen before he can witness the reaction to that. 

Being brave for yourself, instead of just for others, is a process that is best done in baby steps. 

00

Magnus wakes slowly, the sounds of rhythmic scratching filtering into the edges of his consciousness in the form of dozens of cat scratching posts invading the final vestiges of his previously wonderfully sexy dream involving his boys, and zero cats. 

A disgruntled groan accompanies his wakefulness, a manicured hand flopping out lazily to swat at the noise. “Go away Chairman, you know better than to be on the bed you mangy feline.”

“Alec says we shouldn’t call them mangy. It hurts President Purrin’s feelings.” 

Magnus’ eyes snap open, sweeping to the right to take in a peacefully sprawled Alec, before falling to the right, where his boyfriend’s parab-where his other boyfriend is somehow both comfortably sprawled against equal parts of the down pillows and Magnus’ chest, and writing in a gold leafed journal with a quill pen of all things. 

Magnus feels justified in his mouth dropping open the very slightest amount. Jace is still a new development after all.

Said new development turns back to his writing with a belated, “And I’m not a cat, man.”  
Magnus clicks his mouth shut. Then opens it again. Then shuts it. 

More scratching of that damn quill. 

“A journal Jonathan?” The “Really?” hovers between them, and for a moment, Jace looks more hesitant than he has in a long while. 

The quill rests on the paper. Jace glances up at Magnus through his floppy, puppy fringe. His eyes are almost pure gold for an instant, then they are not, then they are once more. 

“Yeah ma-Mags, I thought it was time I started one of my own.” Magnus doesn’t ask what that one might be, anymore than he deigns to acknowledge that truly dreadful attempt at shortening his name. 

A whoosh of blue spirits the whole mess over to the nightstand, Magnus taking the opportunity to tangle his left hand with Jace’s still poised fingers, tugging the boy closer to his chest and further from the mountain of pillows on that side of the bed. “That is a wonderful idea Jonathan, you can start it first thing in the morning.” Jace flashes deliberately golden irises at their phones, the screens lighting up to display a time that some people who are not the High Warlock of Brooklyn might venture to call morning.

Jace casts a last look at the journal, and surrenders to gentle tug at his shoulders. His head nestled up to Magnus’ heartbeat, his next words breathed against the warlock’s pulse point. 

“Hey Magnus? You guys know I love you right?” Magnus’ eyes fly open even as his head thunks against the mattress. Why does Jace insist on having relationship milestones in the middle of the blessed night?

Still, his “Of course sweetheart,” is lost in Alec’s sleepy and surprisingly loud response to the revelation. “That’s great Jace, we love you too. Plus I’m pretty sure this makes the score Us all, Valentine zero, but for Raziel’s Sake, can we go back to sleep now?” 

Magnus feels his magic begin to do something that is most definitely not purring, as Jonathan’s melodic laughter prompts a chorus of disgruntled hissing to start up from the direction of their new boyfriend’s pillow collection. 

Magnus thought he had been finding too much cat hair in the sheets lately. 

Alec’s groan joined the chorus, and Magnus flopped back against the headboard, ignoring the angry screeches this prompted. They were never going to get any sleep tonight. 

Why, by the Angel, had he ever thought collecting cats and shadowhunters was a good idea. 

As the cacophony rises to new levels of excruciating, Magnus’ eyes find the discarded journal, the burnished cover glinting gold in the pre-dawn light. 

Alec threw a pillow at Jace, covering Magnus and assorted cats in a carpet of falling goose feathers. 

Magnus spits feathers out of his mouth, glances at the journal once more, then at his tussling boys. 

President Drumpf nuzzles against his chin, a frown marring the beauty of her silver-blue fur. 

Magnus allows his magic its head, a wicked grin stealing across his face. He whispers, “You lose Morgenstern,” in the direction of the journal, and gathering goose down into a swirling mass, rolls across the bed with a war cry on his lips. 

And somewhere out there, in the past even he will never be powerful enough to change, he somehow just knows, that a lonely little boy is smiling.


End file.
